1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an interface conversion device and method, and more particularly, to an interface conversion device, an embedded system having the same, and a method for transferring a data signal used in the same device capable of transferring a data signal between a smartcard interface and an interface of a processor within the embedded system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile terminal which is a representative type of an embedded system is equipped with various smart cards, such as a universal subscriber identification module (USIM) card, a user identification module (UIM), and a subscriber identification module (SIM), for user authentication. Further, a universal integrated circuit card (UICC) equipped with various service applications, such as banking, securities, and electronic money, in addition to the user authentication has been frequently used as a new type of smart card. The UICC uses a smartcard IC chip to ensure security which is the most important factor, in which the smartcard IC chip has excellent security enough to satisfy a physical security level.
Generally, the smartcard IC chip is inserted into a slot within the embedded system (for example, mobile terminal) to perform data communication with a processor within the embedded system (hereinafter, ‘embedded processor’) for user authentication, and the like. The smartcard IC chip performs the data communication in half-duplex based on an ISO 7816 interface which is specified as a standard of a contact type card.
Therefore, in order for the smartcard IC chip to communicate with the embedded processor through various interfaces, such as UART, SPI, and I2C, in addition to the ISO 7816 interface, a need exists for a device and a method for converting a signal between the ISO 7816 interface of the smartcard and the interface of the embedded processor.